


Old Wounds

by TalonQueen



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Combat, Gen, Guns, Sad, fast forward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-21 16:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16580186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalonQueen/pseuds/TalonQueen
Summary: Steve Rogers is retired in the country side, thinking back on his years with S.H.I.E.L.D, and with Bucky.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic EVER. Please let me know if I'm breaking any conventions or unspoken rules haha. I hope you enjoy.

Steve Rogers didn't want anything else from his life. He'd lived on the same house in rural Nebraska for the past 22 years and there was nowhere he would rather spend his time. He awoke every morning to the same sunrise and fell asleep to the same sunset every evening. He would chop wood with the same ax, plant his garden with the same trowel, and drive the same rusted out truck to the nearest town to get anything he needed. Of course he tried to provide for himself as best he could, but some things you just can't make on your own in the middle of nowhere. He could always ask S.H.I.E.L.D for supplies but their helicopters were far too conspicuous for his taste and he was living a quiet life here. 

Some days Steve sat on the porch and stared off along the horizon, clouds drifting lazily across his vision. The long and empty expanse of the Nebraska plains were interrupted on occasion by small copses of trees, little bumps along the straight line where land met sky. One such wooded area sat right next to Steve's small parcel of land. A couple acres of oak and cottonwood that provided Steve with plenty of space for walking, running, and stumps to sit and take it all in. After all that's what he was here for. After everything Steve had been through, after years of service he was finally able to step away from it all, but only after the most dangerous mission of his life, the one that left him with a would that has never healed, and another wound deep in his heart, not physically there, but one that hurts more than any other he had ever received.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Twenty two years ago, Bucky died.

 

He and Steve were on a simple reconnaissance mission, mapping a Hydra splinter faction base in the depths of The Sahara desert. They had been dropped about 20 clicks to the South and had spent the past two days slowly making their way across the Sandy expanse. Intel said this base was the testing site for a new type of firearm, an infantry rifle capable of punching a hole in tank armor. Needless to say this needed to be looked into, and either stolen or destroyed. As always Steve and Bucky had as little Intel as necessary, and were going in nearly blind. 

At dusk they slowly crawled their way up a dune, swathed in tan camouflage. Bucky could feel the sand grating in his metal arm, and winced with every movement.  
“Steve, I'm gonna kill that little idiot in R&D when we get back.”  
“It's not his fault Buck.”  
“It's his job, he knew well enough in advance to have my desert op prosthetic ready but did he?”  
“No”  
Bucky nods in lieu of speaking, his words held back with a sharp grimace as an audible creak comes from his shoulder.  
“Are you gonna be okay? We may need to infiltrate.”  
“I'll give you an answer once I know if I need to infiltrate”  
Steve stared at Bucky, who rolled his eyes and nodded.  
“I’ll be fine Steve.”  
They both smirked at each other and kept climbing in silence.  
By the time the sun was just dipping behind the horizon they reached the top of the massive dune and peaked over the edge. In perfect sync they looked at each other, a mix of fear and excitement spread across their faces. Nobody but them knew what fear looked like on each other, and given their past, it's a look they had seen many times on each other's faces. Over the dune, far below them lay a massive compound. Huge towering flood lights illuminated a huge ring of temporary buildings and tents. In the center was a circular building, all black, with only one visible door.  
“I make maybe,” Bucky mumbled as he pushed a pair of small binoculars to his eyes, “20 guards.”  
“Armed?”  
“Small arms for the most part, I see one, two, three, no wait four, ARs.”  
Steve began to unwrap the desert camp wrap from his shield, revealing the matte grey stealth model that had just been made for him.  
“Guard towers?”  
Bucky panned across the camp before answering.  
“Surprisingly no, and all the floodlights are pointed inwards,” he paused, “almost as if”.  
“They're not trying to keep people out, they're trying to keep something in.” Steve finished Bucky's thought. Bucky nodded and gestured to the foreboding black circle at the center.  
“Maybe whatever's in there.” he handed the binoculars over to Steve who now had his shield out and strapped to his back. Bucky then started to open the case slung across his back and begin assembling and modifying his rifle.  
Steve looked through the binoculars at the black building. “Thoughts?” Bucky asked.  
Steve thought for a moment, trying to take in as much detail as he could.  
“We'll need a distraction, or we wait till it's dark.” Bucky held up two fingers. “We’ll wait till it's dark then.” Steve responded.  
Bucky paused and stared off into space for a moment.  
“Maybe we should leave this one be Steve.”  
Steve turned and gave Bucky a quizzical glance.  
“I mean we don't have any evidence of the weapon we were sent to find being here, and if they're trying to keep something in, it's probably not something we want to let out”  
Steve thought long and hard about what Bucky had just said.  
“But if they have something dangerous here, S.H.I.E.L.D needs to know about it. It took so much time and effort to get out here and we are the only agents who could pull this off.”  
Bucky gives Steve the 'i know you're right and that makes me mad’ look. Steve hands the binoculars back as Bucky finishes assembling his rifle and straps the case onto his back. Steve glances at the sky.  
“I'd give us twenty two minutes till it's dark enough.”  
They both look down as Steve pulls out a small notebook.  
“Tic tac toe?” Bucky says, an impish grin on his face. Steve rolls his eyes.  
“If you don't want to make a plan.” Steve says, exasperation and sarcasm mixing in his voice. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Occasionally Steve will stare out at the rolling fields and they will fade from his mind, to be replaced by the golden undulating waves of the desert. His eyes glaze over as his mind drifts back, and his right side, from armpit to hip bone starts to ache. Sometimes he drifts for minutes, sometimes for an hour. Occasionally he will blink and it will be over. Afterwards he always cries. It's never loud, or big. Just a steady flow of tears down his cheeks and shaking breath. Today he stared off at a distance clump of trees for just a few minutes before snapping out of it, tears wetting the collar of his shirt. He gently massaged his side and stood to gather what he needed for a short trip into town.


	2. Infiltration

Steve snapped his notebook shut and tucked it into a small pouch on his belt. Bucky pulled the magazine from his rifle and checked for sand, tapping it gently against the barrel. Once they were both ready they nodded at each other, and began to crawl off in opposite directions. Steve reached his point of descent about fifty yards ahead of his starting point and turned and began very slowly, stopping and starting, to make his way down the side of the dune. As he drew closer to the base he started to see more details. These soldiers all wore similar uniforms, all emblazoned with the crimson dagger that was emblematic of this Hydra splinter group. The tents surrounding the center of the camp almost all appeared to be barracks, with a scant few appearing to be command centers or armories of some form or another. As he hid amongst the pylons and wires at the base of one of the huge flood lights he felt the small communications band around his wrist pulse twice, Bucky was ready. Steve tapped the band twice, signalling back to Bucky that he too was ready, and perfectly on cue and according to plan, the floodlight opposite Steve went dark. All the soldiers looked over in the direction of the deactivated light and a few began talking to each other in German. After a few moments a couple guards walked over to the light, escorting what appeared to be an engineer. As they reached the light, another one, two lights over, went dark. The conversation began to grow louder and faster as they all began to wonder what was happening. Most of the guards began to wander towards the two lights out of curiosity, leaving a few scattered isolated guards at Steve’s end of the compound.

Steve drew his shield off his back and chucked it with pinpoint accuracy directly at the nearest guard, knocking him cold, the stealth fiber coating and softer core of his stealth shield dampening the sound of the blow. Steve caught the shield on the bounce back, having to reach out a bit further than normal to the side. This model had an unreliable ricochet that he still wasn’t quite used too. He resolved to practice more when they got back but for now he quickly scampered out to the unconscious guard and dragged him back into the shadows under the floodlight. He began going through his pockets and pouches, eventually finding a small handheld computer. Steve snapped a small SD card into the slot, which quickly decrypted the device. He scrolled through the entries until he found one of interest.

Log #33 - January 12, 2019

Attention, this is a notice to all devotees stationed at Sand Shroud station.  
In three days time, an experimental weapon will be delivered to, and housed at your station. It will be accompanied by a group of trained mechanics and scientists, please give them your utmost respect and reverence. 

This particular weapon is incredibly dangerous, a device fashioned of technology and old magic. A tool we will use in time to restore our former glory. I must advise that you stay as far away as possible though, as it can be incredibly dangerous at times.

Hail Hydra

Steve pocketed the communicator and began thinking about the implications of what he had just read. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a flash of movement as a guard to his left was grabbed my a metal arm from out of the darkness. He smiled and waited patiently. A few moments later Bucky emerged from the shadows to huddle next to Steve. 

“How many did you take out?” Bucky whispered, glancing down at the unconscious Hydra soldier at their feet.   
“Just him, but I found this, read log 33.”  
Bucky took the device and scrolled for a bit and then read the entry in question.  
“So there is a weapon here.”  
Steve nodded as he stared out at the large black building at the center of the base.   
“Well, lights should be out for a bit, so we have time to plan.”


	3. Pondering

Steve pulls into a spot in front of the small general store on the edge of town. He climbs down out of his truck and grabs a couple empty gas cans from the back of the truck. He walks slowly to the front door, stopping as he spies his own reflection in the glass. The thick beard and dark sunken eyes that stare back at him belong to a different man. It's a man he still doesn't know. A man that, to be honest, scares him. He continues to stare at his reflection until he hears a short cough from behind him. He blinks once and snaps back to reality. He turns and looks at the young man behind him. A mid 20s boy in a cutoff shirt with tobacco stuffed into his lower lip looks at Steve with a tired look.   
“Hey Gramps, I need to get inside okay.”  
Steve's grip on the gas can tightens. He blinks once, and steps to the side. The kid shakes his head and walks past Steve and through the door.  
Steve stares into the distance, thinking. This small town gave him hope, but scared him all at once. In places like these it is so easy to believe in the American dream, even as you see emblems of it's failure. Most people in the town were nice though, and Steve knew that if trouble found him again, he'd defend them with his life. However much that was worth these days.  
Steve walks through the door, giving the shop owner a quick and stoic nod. Most of the people in town who knew him, and there were only a couple, simply knew him as 'Mr. Anderson’ and nothing more. He is quiet and polite, that's all they cared about. He approaches the counter and set the gas cans down.   
“Anderson”  
“Byer”  
“Need these filled?”  
“Please”  
“Anything else?”  
“I'll browse while you fill”  
Byer, Sam Byer, nods and takes the cans to outside to small gas pump.  
Steve begins to walk around the store, setting a few items into a basket. Flour, eggs, milk, and a couple other things he can't make on his own. He grows his own vegetables, and know good spots to pick berries near his cabin. He had tried growing fruit, but he could never quite figure it out. He glances at the young man, and notices him attempting to sneak a bag of beef jerky into his back pocket. Steve clenches his jaw but says nothing. A few moments later Sam re-enters the shop.   
“I put the cans in the back of your truck.”  
“That's very kind, thank you”  
Behind Steve, the kid walks quickly past him and out of the store. Steve casually reaches behind himself and slips the beef jerky away from the kid, and places it back on the shelf. As the young man speeds away in his truck, Steve approaches the counter, silently pays, and leaves with a small nod.


End file.
